Russia said “We can Do no more for Syria`s Assad”

(DP-News - agencies)MOSCOW- A top Kremlin aide said on Monday Moscow could do little more for Syrian President Bashar Assad, opening the door to a shift in Russia's position after 10 months of bloodshed.

“Today we can say
the situation in Syria reaches the deadlock. The League of Arab States will not
give up its plan, which envisions abdication of President Bashar al-Assad and
has been rejected by the Syrian authorities,” Margelov said.

“The Syrian
leadership hopes that it will succeed in finishing with the opposition. Thus,
these steps can only lead to a large-scale civil war,” the Federation Council
chairman stressed.

Russia can do no more, state-run news agency Itar-Tass quoted Mikhail Margelov, a senior lawmaker who is President Dmitry Medvedev's special Africa envoy and has also engaged in diplomacy over Syria, as saying.

"(Our) veto on the U.N. Security Council resolution was the last instrument allowing Bashar al-Assad to maintain the status quo in the international arena," Margelov was quoted as saying.

The veto "was a serious signal to the president of Syria from Russia. This veto has exhausted our arsenal of such resources," said Margelov, who is chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia's upper parliament house.

Earlier on Monday, Syria rejected the Arab League's wide-ranging new plan to end the crisis, saying the League's call for a national unity government in two months is a clear violation of Syrian sovereignty.

President Bashar al-Assad blames the uprising that erupted in March on terrorists and armed gangs acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country. Syria`s regime has retaliated with a brutal crackdown that the U.N. says has killed more than 5,400 people.

However; there is growing urgency to find a resolution to a crisis that is growing increasingly violent as regime opponents and army defectors who have switched sides have started to fight back against government forces.

Moscow is one of Assad's few remaining allies, resisting pressure to call for his resignation and, with China, blocking a Western-crafted U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned a crackdown that has killed thousands of civilians.